AVIATION COLLECTION

Between 1932 and World War II, more than 25 aviation related serial radio programs were broadcast around the U.S. The affect those radio programs had on the youth of America was huge. "Jimmie Allen", "Tailspin Tommy", and the other aviation heros of radio promoted aviation and inspired hundreds of thousands of kids towards mechanical and technical careers. These were the same kids who carried the U.S. to victory in World War II, and later landed a man on the moon. If you read the biographies and interviews of the U.S. aces of WWII, and of the Mercury and Apollo astronauts, almost without exception they listened to these aviation radio programs and built model airplanes in their youth. And so did the tens of thousands of engineers, scientists, and technicians who supported them.

The first of the radio programs to capture the attention of young listeners was The Air Adventures of Jimmie Allen in 1933. Jimmie was a fictional 16 year old lineboy and pilot-in-training at the Kansas City Airport. His mentor was a war ace named Speed Robertson. Jimmie and Speed, along with their mechanic Flash Lewis, solved mysteries, went on treasure hunts, made emergency landings and parachute jumps, raced in air shows, and took on crime and criminals in weekly 15-minute sky-high adventures. Kids couldn't get enough! Jimmie's immense popularity spawned the creation of a nationwide Jimmie Allen Flying Club. The club newspaper was sent to 600,000 listeners a week. Tens of thousands of Jimmie Allen "cadets" would participate in regional Jimmie Allen Air Races, flying their Jimmie Allen rubber power model airplanes.